De betovering van Ritzer

Samenvatting

In Enchanting a Disenchanted World (1999), George Ritzer is, as usual, critical of modern manners and means of consumption. Since the publication of The McDonaldization of Society (1993), Ritzer has taken great interest in the dynamics of the contemporary consumer society. He is simultaneously frightened and fascinated by its current course. While he is enchanted by the ubiquity of McDonaldization as a process, quite the opposite goes for the way he judges its principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. According to Ritzer's critics, his analysis of the disenchanted world is too one-sided, simplistic, and/or pessimistic. Ritzer searches for postmodern ideas to understand the spread of consumer religion and its places of worship -- the so-called cathedrals of consumption -- but hardly succeeds. Although he fails to grasp the attraction of modern consumption and its means, Enchanting a Disenchanted World is an enchanting part of his oeuvre. 31 References. Adapted from the source document.